What was that name, again?

Laughter is always part of what we do in writing group. Today one person forgot her phone and her purse, which meant she drove to the meeting without her license. We have made food and forgotten to bring it, written poems or memoirs and left them at home, worn one each of two pairs of shoes (that was me), and our recollection of the names of authors and their works is now haphazard at best. Aging together, we laugh. 

Over the nine years we have been meeting, one group member has died, another has disappeared into Alzheimer’s, one got a new kidney, several got new hips or knees, one had a stroke, and there have been several flirtations with death. But one thing we often laugh about is how undependable short-term memory has become. Today Hilda, above, brought a poem about that very subject, a letter addressed to a cloud and signed with the name of a neighbor who is living with dementia. Hilda’s poem is a great way to mark the end of our group. (Extra is Margie and Kendall, photo taken by Tommee Carlisle.)

Untitled
By Hilda Welch

Dear Nimbus,

I have lost my voice! Did I ever have it? You must remember how
we used to sing on long road trips, or is that an invention, trans-
mogrified from a wish turned memory? Wakened last night by an

aging bladder, I went down the hall to find not the toilet but the kitchen 
table. So much seems turned to dust and blown away, like the color of
your eyes, blue, grey or brown? I fear I frighten you as much as me.

But if I tell no one, who will know? Soon I’ll be found at some sea
shore’s edge, with no one to claim me, my memory gone, start a new
life, learn the language of the sign or make my wants known by mime

or pointed finger, an innocent in the world, open to awe, free from
knowing human fault and pain. Yes! A new everyday is what I want
my heaven to be. I’ll wake forever, always into mystery.

For the moment,
Judith


March 2017